The Woman on the Cliff

by JANICE FROST

  “I suppose it’s a good sign that you feel bad about it,” I conceded.

  Did she? She’d only said that she’d scared herself, not that she felt remorse.

  “You think?” Elspeth asked. I repeated what I’d said about not being a shrink.

  “I don’t deserve a friend like you,” she said, weirdly echoing Moira’s words.

  The following morning, Elspeth did something surprising. She apologised to Moira.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “We need to speak with Andrew Kelso.”

  I’m standing in Innes’s kitchen. He and Bronn have just returned from an early morning walk. It’s wet outside, and Innes is busy wiping Bronn’s paws. He looks up at me, water dripping from the tip of his nose.

  “How much did you see of Kelso back then? What was he like?” he asks.

  “He was practically part of our household for a time. He was vain. He loved to be flattered and made to feel important, which Moira was only too aware of. He was also ambitious. Determined to make a name for himself in academia.”

  I begin telling Innes about the time Andrew drew me into his study, just after he learned that Moira had been cheating on him with Stuart Brogan.

  “He couldn’t believe it.” I shake my head, recalling his urgent questions about Moira, his Who is she close to? Who does she confide in? “I suppose he was trying to find out if she had any other lovers he didn’t know about. Or maybe he wanted to know who she might have blabbed to about their affair. He was really anxious to keep it under wraps. Worried about his reputation, I suppose. But even back in the eighties, was it really such a big deal? I can’t believe he’d have lost his job if news of an extramarital affair got out.”

  “Hmm . . .” I spoon coffee into the cafetière, allowing Innes time to think. He says, “Or perhaps it was the betrayal of trust that upset him the most. If Moira was capable of cheating on him with Stuart Brogan, maybe she was untrustworthy in other ways too?”

  “What other ways? If you’re implying he couldn’t trust her to keep his confidences, I doubt he had anything worse than adultery to hide.”

  “It’s an intriguing thought,” Innes says, “that Moira might have known something about Andrew Kelso that he wouldn’t have wanted her to disclose to anyone else.”

  “Not very likely, though, is it?” I say. “Unless it was something earth-shatteringly big, in which case I doubt he’d tell Moira about it.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t tell her.”

  It takes a couple of moments for me to process what he means. “Oh! You mean Moira might have discovered something by accident? Again, it would have to have been a pretty big something, if we’re speculating that he might have killed her to stop her talking about it.”

  “Hmm. I’ve been thinking about Kelso’s politics.” He pauses, as if to gauge my response. His next question seems to come from nowhere. “Did you ever watch that BBC documentary called The Spying Game?”

  I frown, vaguely remembering. “I think so. Wasn’t it about British people who’d been spies for the Stasi during the Cold War, or something?”

  “That’s right. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stasi tried to destroy all the documents and files they’d amassed on their own and foreign citizens, but the people got wind of what they were up to and stormed their offices. Masses of files had already been destroyed, but many survived the shredders. After the reunification of Germany, there was a great deal of debate about what to do with the information that was rescued. Should the people be given access to it, or was it too sensitive, too inflammatory? The files were eventually declassified in 1992. One of the repercussions was that a number of UK citizens, academics included, were discovered to have been secretly working as informers.”

  I listen politely, wondering why he’s telling me all this. Then, suddenly, I catch on. “Wait! Are you seriously suggesting Andrew killed Moira because she found out he was a spy?”

  “Too far-fetched?” Innes says.

  Yes! And yet, it does make me think again about Andrew’s questions that afternoon, and his mood of general anxiety. “Wow. That would certainly meet the definition of something pretty big,” I say.

  A troubling thought occurs to me. I think back to the moment when Innes first asked us if Moira had a boyfriend. Andrew Kelso’s name had been on my lips, but then Elspeth had glared at me and mentioned only Stuart Brogan’s name. Surely Elspeth hadn’t . . .? No, Elspeth was in love with Andrew. That was the only reason she’d been so protective of him at that moment, so keen to keep his name out of things.

  “Well, it’s only a thought. For now,” Innes says. “A pretty outlandish one at that, but I like to cover all the bases.” He smiles. “Your friend Lucy would be impressed.”

  While we’ve been talking, Bronn has been standing expectantly in front of the cupboard where Innes keeps his treats. He paws the floor and gives a little whine. “Sorry, pal.” Innes opens the cupboard and extracts a box of doggie treats. He takes a couple out and gives them to Bronn, who chomps on them happily.

  Meanwhile, my mind is working overtime. Could Andrew Kelso have killed Moira for the reason Innes is suggesting? Is it credible? If Stuart Brogan hadn’t taken his own life and left that note of confession, Andrew would have been a prime suspect. Spy or no spy.

  And what about the older man Lucy saw Moira with? Isn’t he supposed to be our number one suspect? It’s beginning to dawn on me just how complex conducting a criminal investigation can be, how the different possibilities can fan out in so many directions, and I hold Innes and his former profession in greater respect.

  I pour the coffee. Innes has somehow conjured up warm croissants. I didn’t even see him pop them in the oven. We sit opposite each other at the breakfast bar. I have a sudden, unwelcome thought. “What if Andrew’s ex-wife contacted him after you questioned her about his alibi? If Andrew was aware you were asking questions again, he might have been watching you, which means he might have seen us together.”

  Innes understands my fear immediately. “You think he might have been behind the attack on Izzy? Kelso himself, or someone he hired to do his dirty work for him? To get you and Izzy away from St Andrews? Warn you off asking questions about the past?”

  “Yes,” I say in a weak voice. “Perhaps he meant to kill her. If Tom hadn’t been nearby . . .” There’s a silence as we both consider this possibility. Though the idea scares me half to death, I’m not put off. I repeat my earlier assertion. “We need to speak with Andrew Kelso,” adding, “as well as John Menzies’s widow.”

  Innes glowers at his croissant, which he is spreading thickly with strawberry jam.

  “Even if all our efforts prove that Stuart Brogan was guilty after all, at least you’ll know a proper investigation has finally been conducted,” I say.

  Innes stirs his coffee slowly. “It was my first year on the job, and the first serious crime I’d been involved with. Until then, it was your everyday petty crime — theft, drunk and disorderly behaviour, the odd indecent assault, by which I mean men exposing themselves. And then I saw Moira’s body. It was a shocking thing for me to witness at that age. The image has never really left me. I prepared myself for a rigorous, protracted investigation. It didn’t happen. Almost before we began, Stuart Brogan was dead. It felt wrong, you know? There were so many questions that were never asked, let alone answered, because it all happened so fast.”

  I put a hand on Innes’s arm. “You couldn’t have known your boss was crooked, or that he was involved in framing, perhaps even killing Stuart Brogan. Don’t blame yourself.”

  Innes nods. “I contacted one of my ex-colleagues in Glasgow, Mark Mapleton. He’s a friend as well as a colleague. Someone I trust. He’s on holiday in Corfu but I’ve arranged to meet him when he gets back. I’ll show him the sketches. He can run them through the databases, see if a match comes up.”

  “Oh.” I can’t keep the disappointment from my voice. I’d been hoping this ex-colleague would be available immediately. “
Well, in the meantime, I can talk with Andrew Kelso.” Innes looks troubled. “I’ll be careful,” I say, “maybe just sort of bump into him accidentally. Izzy’s at the university. That’s a good enough excuse for me to be here, isn’t it? I’ll engage him in conversation. Moira’s name is bound to come up.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I’m not police. I can’t just accost him in the street and demand an interview, or ask him to help with our enquiries. And you’re not police anymore, so you can’t do that either. And if you talked to him, it would arouse his suspicions.”

  I see regret flicker across Innes’s face when I point out that he’s no longer a police officer. His expression soon morphs into one of resignation. Retired or not, he switches to police mode.

  “Okay. But if you’re right about him being responsible for the attack on Izzy, we need to be careful. Kelso could be a very dangerous individual. We need to talk strategy. Plan how and when you’ll approach him, and what you’re going to say. And, it’s probably best if you don’t mention politics.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  We spend the rest of the morning contriving a plan. I look Andrew Kelso up on the university website and give an involuntary gasp, for he looks as though he’s stepped out of a time warp. Surely, it’s not possible for anyone to age so gracefully? He must be in his mid-fifties. His hair is greying and gravity has exerted its downward pull on his features, but he’s instantly recognisable, and even in a head and shoulders snapshot, he exudes the same sexual allure that made him irresistible to so many female students.

  “Silver fox.” There’s no hint of envy in Innes’s tone.

  “Distinguished.” We both laugh.

  “Clever bastard too,” Innes says, his eyes travelling over Andrew’s academic CV. “And prolific. Look at all those journals he’s contributed to.” He reads out a small selection of the titles. “American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies. And he’s written a couple of books.”

  “Don’t forget the prizes,” I say, pointing to the accolades awarded to Andrew by various leading journals in the fields of politics and economic history. He’s also served on numerous editorial boards and even on a US political committee in an advisory capacity. “He was a bit of a linguist too, if I remember rightly. Spoke fluent German and French, a bit of Spanish. At least one of his parents was German. They came over here after the war.”

  “It’s a wonder he had any energy left for his sexual adventures,” Innes says.

  “He was less polished when I knew him. Twenty-nine years old. Not that much older than us really, though the age gap seemed bigger at the time. He was just starting out in the world of academia. He wore jeans and T-shirts, just like everyone else in those days. Looked slightly scruffy, in fact.”

  I think of Andrew, sneaking into the house on North Street under cover of darkness. Elspeth was jealous of his relationship with Moira, but it didn’t stop her worshipping him. She had her own reasons for not talking about his and Moira’s affair to anyone outside our house. It gave her power over Moira.

  Innes and I spend the morning researching and preparing for my interview with Andrew. I phone his department and pretend I’m one of his students, so as to get an idea of where he’s likely to be in the afternoon. The admin staff member I speak with is surprisingly helpful, and we are able to work out that Andrew is free after a departmental meeting at three o’clock. Otherwise, his schedule for the next few days is hectic.

  “It’s now or never,” I say to Innes, who insists on preparing a script for my initial encounter with Andrew which, if all goes according to plan, will take place outside the library.

  But the best laid plans ‘gang aft agley,’ as the poet said, and so it is with our plan for ‘bumping into’ Andrew. His meeting overruns, or he doesn’t leave the building immediately after it finishes. I’m supposed to walk behind him, then come up alongside him and say, “Andrew Kelso? Is that really you?”

  But he emerges from the building at the same time as a local primary school is disgorging its young charges onto the pavement in one great surge. Andrew niftily crosses the street to avoid them, leaving me stranded in a sea of excited, noisy children and their minders.

  I dart after him, struggling to keep up with his lengthy strides. Out of breath and panting, I catch up with him at WHSmith.

  A chance encounter in a shop seems like the next best thing to the library. I watch him browsing the journals for a moment or two before sidling up and picking out a copy of Good Housekeeping magazine. I take a breath and look up. “Andrew Kelso? Is that really you?” My words sound rehearsed, false. Andrew starts, peers at me, frowning. Recognition dawns.

  “Ros Anderson?”

  I’m beaming stupidly, glad that his response wasn’t, “Do I know you?” Maybe the years have been kinder than I think. Or maybe he’s been expecting me.

  “Yes. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” I give a forced laugh. “More years than I care to remember.”

  He smiles politely at the cliché. This must happen to him all the time. Former students he’s forgotten or hardly remembers, hailing him like an old friend. He probably has a script for dealing with such encounters. A few gracious words that won’t make his accosters feel inconsequential but will leave them in no doubt that he’s too busy for small talk with virtual strangers. Do I have any more right to his time? I wasn’t even a student of his. There is something that binds us, though, even after all these years.

  “So terrible,” I blurt out, “all that business about Moira.” It’s as if I’ve punched and winded him. The colour drains from his face, and instantly I’m looking at a much older man. I was supposed to ask him if he still works at the university, tell him I’m in town to visit my daughter who’s a student here.

  “Are you alright?” I ask. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . . memories, you know.” My voice trembles. My distress is genuine. Rehearsing the encounter with Innes hasn’t adequately prepared me for the emotional impact of seeing Andrew Kelso in person. He recovers first.

  “There’s a café nearby. Shall we go there? I think we’ve both had a bit of a shock.” I nod. We return our magazines to their shelves. I follow him outside, thinking that despite the script being abandoned, things are working according to plan.

  He insists on queueing and paying for the drinks while I find us a table. As I wait for him to come over, I remind myself that we are equals now. Back then, I’d always felt like an awkward schoolgirl around him.

  “You knocked me for six back there. It’s years since Moira died, but hardly a day goes by without me thinking about her.” The emotion seems genuine enough. I don’t doubt for a nanosecond that he thinks of Moira often. It’s what he thinks that bothers me.

  “What happened to her shocked us all at the time, but I don’t suppose any of us realised then that it would affect us for the rest of our lives. Her death — the way she died — it haunted me for years. I couldn’t stop thinking about how scared she must have felt at the end,” I gush.

  “How do you think I felt,” Andrew says, “unable to protect her from that monster Brogan?”

  I’ve become so accustomed to discounting Stuart Brogan as Moira’s killer that I’m taken aback when Andrew refers to him this way. We sit in silent contemplation for a few moments.

  “What brings you to St Andrews?” It’s an abrupt change of subject but of course, unlike me, Andrew isn’t desperate to keep on topic.

  “My daughter, Izzy. She’s a student here.”

  “Congratulations. On having a daughter, I mean. Does Izzy have a brother, a sister . . .?”

  “No. She’s an only child. Her father died, and I didn’t find anyone else I wanted to share our lives with.” Until now, I think, picturing Innes’s face. Andrew mutters his apologies. “How about you?” I ask.

  “My first wife, Annie, left me shortly after Moira’s murder. She knew I was seeing Moira but she was alright with it as long as no one else knew. W
hen it all came out in the open, she couldn’t cope. I’ve since remarried. Twice.”

  He says this with some regret. Moira always maintained that Andrew loved Annie. I don’t ask how many other young female students he has slept with over the years. That’s none of my business. He asks me about Elspeth and Shona. Lucy, he struggles to remember. He’s probably seen her around town without recognising her.

  “Elspeth’s an accountant. She lives and works in Edinburgh. Shona’s a geologist. She’s worked abroad a lot, most recently in Australia and New Zealand. She and her partner are thinking of settling in Scotland, at least for part of the year.”

  “I knew Elspeth would do well. She had an enquiring mind. She was an . . . attractive young woman.”

  There’s something about that pause. Our eyes meet. Immediately, I intuit that Andrew slept with Elspeth. It’s a troubling thought. Elspeth’s never mentioned it, and that worries me. She was jealous as hell of Moira’s relationship with Andrew. Did she really stoop so low as to capitalise on her death?

  I come straight out with it. “Did you and she sleep together before or after Moira’s murder?”

  To his credit, he doesn’t lie or tell me to mind my own business. “After. She came to me one afternoon, distraught. I was at a particularly low ebb myself, and I suppose we sought comfort in each other’s arms, so to speak.”

  I wince at the cliché. “How long did you ‘comfort’ each other for?” I know my hostility risks scuppering my chances of having a meaningful conversation with him, but I can’t help myself. Knowing of their behaviour rankles.

  “Most of that final term.” Not a one-off then. For a moment, I’m lost for words.

  “You didn’t know?” he asks.

  “No. Elspeth was my best friend. I’m surprised she didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, I’m guessing you knew she hated Moira.”

  I stare at him in surprise. “Yes, but I find it hard to understand how you’d embark on an affair with her, knowing that.”

  “Moira had told me, of course. But Elspeth claimed she was really upset over the way she’d treated her. She was ‘eaten up with remorse.’ It took some time for me to realise that she was feigning her grief to get in my pants.” He gives a bitter little smile, as if remembering the unpleasant taste of his own medicine.